Friuli Venezia Giulia

Rome founded Aquileia as a Latin colony in 181 BC, and it grew into one of the empire's great cities, a port and road junction guarding the eastern Alps. Julius Caesar's Forum Iulii, today's Cividale, gave Friuli its name. After Attila sacked Aquileia in 452, people fled to the lagoon at Grado, and the Lombards made Cividale the seat of their first Italian duchy in 568.

The patriarchs of Aquileia became secular rulers of Friuli in 1077 and held it until Venice conquered the area in 1420, building the star fortress of Palmanova in 1593 against the Turks and the Habsburgs. Trieste, by contrast, placed itself under Habsburg protection in 1382, and after it was made a free port in 1719 it grew into Austria's main seaport, a cosmopolitan city of Italians, Slovenes, Germans, Greeks, Serbs and Jews where James Joyce taught English and Italo Svevo wrote.

Friuli joined Italy in 1866, but Trieste and Gorizia only after the First World War, whose Isonzo front ran along the eastern edge of the region. The Second World War left bitter memories: the Nazi camp at the Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste, and killings and expulsions by Yugoslav forces. Trieste was run as a Free Territory under Allied administration until 1954, when it returned to Italy. In 1976 an earthquake killed about 1,000 people in Friuli, and towns such as Gemona and Venzone were rebuilt stone by stone.

The region is a patchwork. Friulian, a Rhaeto-Romance language related to Ladin and Romansh, is spoken by hundreds of thousands of people and is officially recognised; Slovene is spoken around Trieste, Gorizia and in the eastern valleys; and German dialects survive around Tarvisio and in villages such as Sauris and Timau. Trieste speaks its own Venetian-derived dialect and keeps a Central European, rather than Italian, character.

Friulians have a reputation for being hard-working, reserved and loyal, and the earthquake reconstruction is still a source of pride. Trieste's identity revolves around its cafés, its writers, its sea and its wind: coffee has its own vocabulary there, and the Barcolana regatta in October fills the gulf with sails. In the Karst plateau behind the city, farmers open osmize, temporary farmhouse sales of wine, ham and eggs, marked by a leafy branch.

Crafts include mosaic, taught at the school in Spilimbergo, and knife-making at Maniago. Religious diversity is unusual for Italy, with Serbian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox and Lutheran churches and a large synagogue in Trieste.

About 1.2 million people live in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Trieste has around 200,000 residents, Udine about 100,000, Pordenone about 50,000 and Gorizia about 33,000; the rest live in small towns and villages across the plain and the hills.

The region has had a special autonomy statute since 1963. Trieste's economy rests on its port, one of Italy's busiest for cargo, shipping insurance, coffee roasting, including Illy, and science, with research centres and a university that give it a high share of researchers. Friuli is known for manufacturing, including Fincantieri's shipyard at Monfalcone and household appliances around Pordenone, as well as furniture, wine and ham.

Life is quieter and older than in much of northern Italy. Current issues include ageing and emigration from the mountains, the growth of the port and of rail links to Central Europe, and cross-border cooperation with Slovenia, symbolised by Gorizia and Nova Gorica's shared year as European Capital of Culture in 2025.

Friulian cooking is mountain and farmhouse food. Frico is a thick fried cake of Montasio cheese and potato, and Montasio itself is the region's main cheese. Prosciutto di San Daniele, a sweet air-dried ham, comes from the hills of San Daniele. In the Carnic Alps, cjarsons are ravioli with a sweet and savoury filling of herbs, raisins and spices, dressed with butter and smoked ricotta. Brovada, turnips fermented in grape pomace, is served with musetto, a spiced pork sausage, and polenta accompanies most meals.

Trieste eats in a Central European way: jota, a soup of beans, sauerkraut and potato; boiled pork with mustard and horseradish in its buffets; and goulash. Sweets show the same mix: presnitz, a spiral of pastry filled with nuts and dried fruit, from Trieste, and gubana, a similar nut-filled bread from Cividale.

The region is known above all for white wine: Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon from the Collio and the Colli Orientali, the sweet Picolit and Ramandolo, and red Refosco and the Karst's Terrano. Grappa is a Friulian speciality, with the Nonino distillery among the best known.

Trieste opens onto the sea at Piazza Unità d'Italia, lined with grand Habsburg-era buildings. Behind it rise the Roman theatre, the hill of San Giusto with its cathedral and castle, the Canal Grande quarter and the historic Caffè San Marco. Along the coast are Miramare Castle, built for Archduke Maximilian of Austria, and Duino Castle, while the Karst plateau holds the vast Grotta Gigante cave and the cliff-top Strada Napoleonica.

Udine has the Venetian-style Piazza della Libertà, a castle on its hill and Tiepolo's frescoes in the archbishop's palace. To the east, Cividale del Friuli keeps the Lombard Tempietto Longobardo and the Devil's Bridge over the Natisone, and the Collio wine hills stretch toward Gorizia. Palmanova's nine-pointed star plan is best appreciated from its ramparts, and the war memorial at Redipuglia recalls the Isonzo front.

On the coast, Aquileia has its patriarchal basilica with its mosaic floor, the Roman forum and river port, all a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Grado, on an island in its lagoon, has an old town with the basilica of Sant'Eufemia and boats to the island sanctuary of Barbana, while Lignano Sabbiadoro is the main beach resort. In the north, the Carnic and Julian Alps offer Tarvisio, Monte Lussari, Sauris and the rebuilt town of Venzone.